#009 - Discover how to play all out for the Lord with special guest, Sterling Jaquith.
In our conversation, she shares her unique experiences balancing motherhood with her entrepreneurial ambitions, and how converting to Catholicism transformed her life and business approach.
Sterling offers invaluable insights on how women can honor their God-given talents while being present for their families.
We delve into the importance of hearing God's voice in business and our professional endeavors. Sterling provides practical advice on seeking clarity, learning from others, and maintaining a positive attitude.
Learn more about Sterling and her programs at sterlingjaquith.com
Are you ready to build high-impact habits of body, mind, and soul that actually stick? Check out the Catholic Path to Excellence today to find out how you can be more consistent in your habits and excel in every aspect of your life.
Feeling "stuck" in your life? Coaching could be the solution you need to break through whatever is holding you back. Book a FREE Call with me today to find out how I can help you.
#009 - Discover how to play all out for the Lord with special guest, Sterling Jaquith.
In our conversation, she shares her unique experiences balancing motherhood with her entrepreneurial ambitions, and how converting to Catholicism transformed her life and business approach.
Sterling offers invaluable insights on how women can honor their God-given talents while being present for their families.
We delve into the importance of hearing God's voice in business and our professional endeavors. Sterling provides practical advice on seeking clarity, learning from others, and maintaining a positive attitude.
Learn more about Sterling and her programs at sterlingjaquith.com
Are you ready to build high-impact habits of body, mind, and soul that actually stick? Check out the Catholic Path to Excellence today to find out how you can be more consistent in your habits and excel in every aspect of your life.
Feeling "stuck" in your life? Coaching could be the solution you need to break through whatever is holding you back. Book a FREE Call with me today to find out how I can help you.
What are you truly capable of? Have you ever felt like maybe you were holding back from really becoming the best version of yourself, from becoming the person God made you to be? If so, you're in the right place. You're listening to the Catholic Pursuit of Excellence, the show that helps you accomplish more, stress less and become the saint God created you to be. I'm your host life and health coach, jessica Castillo, and this is episode nine. Today, we're going to be exploring what it means to play all out for the Lord. I'm joined today by a very special guest. I'm here with Sterling Jaquith. She is a Catholic life and business coach and if you are familiar in the Catholic online space, you probably already know a little bit about Sterling and her work, but she's awesome. So excited to have her on the show today. So, sterling, welcome.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me. I love talking about business with other women.
Speaker 1:It's so good. And what was the inspiration for this podcast interview is last week, sterling sent an email about playing all out for the Lord, about doing all that you're truly capable of, and, honestly, as I was reading your email, sterling, I was like yes, yes, yes. And then I was like Sterling want to be on my show, because this is amazing, all of this is so good. So I would love if you can kind of just share for my audience a little bit about what you do and who you serve, and then maybe we can talk a little bit more about what you actually said in that email. That was so good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I always knew that I wanted to be in business. I wrote my first business plan when I was 11. I started competing with business plans in high school and through college and won money, and then I started my first business. I did web design in high school, which counts but I took the money that I won in college and started my first like grownup business after I graduated from college and I've been doing forms of business ever since and I've done a lot of different kinds of businesses, and so God planted those seeds in my heart really early on, and I grew up without a lot of money. We were pretty poor, and so I remember reading once that nine out of 10 businesses fail, and the thought I had at a young age and I look back and think this is so incredible was great I only have to start 10. Like, even from that moment, I just knew like I was going to do this. I was going to try, and even if I fell flat on my face over and over again, I was going to pick myself up again and try again. And that's really what I've done.
Speaker 2:And I was not raised Catholic. I didn't become Catholic until I was 25, right before I got married. And then I got married and I got pregnant on our honeymoon. So that was quite surprising and it was really hard, because I had gone from working and loving work to staring at a baby in the living room and thinking this is so boring, what am I going to do? I can't do this. But I wanted to be home with her, and so that's when I really started exploring online things and dabbling in things, and dabble is the word I would use.
Speaker 2:I really dabbled for a lot of years because I ended up having six kids in eight years. So every time I wanted to do business, god was like nope, here's a baby. And so I learned a lot about online technology in that time, but I wasn't even really trying to get a business off the ground, I was mostly just having these kids. And then the Lord just moved my heart in a very obvious way when it was time. I really felt like he just tapped me on the shoulder and said hey, it's time we're going to go all in on business, and my husband and I sold a business that we had.
Speaker 2:We moved to a place with no jobs, so Jessica can appreciate what it's like to just work online anywhere in the world, and we were like we have to make it. We have to make it because we moved to this place, where there really are no jobs, and so I started a coaching business, and that was a little over three years ago, and I have a couple coaching businesses now, but one of them is a business coaching business where I really help Catholic moms navigate. Are they being called to business and, if so, how can we do that in a way that really integrates into our family life?
Speaker 1:I love it so much. And you know, sterling, I did not realize before we have so much in common. So I also grew up extremely poor. I also converted to Catholicism. I think I was just shy of 25 the month before I got married. So I went through RCA, came into the Catholic church, then got married the next month.
Speaker 1:So yeah, and I think it's in a similar way too, I kind of struggled with that transition of going from being a working professional or having a career and then I knew I wanted to be home with my kids. I knew I wanted to be a present mom, but I also kind of struggled in that. Oh okay, so now I'm this mom person. Is this the death of all my hopes and dreams, which I thought a lot of women don't? Because at the time I didn't know entrepreneurship was a thing, I didn't know that online business was even a viable career field. So I think that for a lot of women, at that juncture in their lives they know they want to do something, they know that the Lord is calling them to use their gifts and talents. And I think it's really challenging because we have this natural desire we want to pour ourselves into our families and into our children, into our babies. But at the same time there's that tug, and I think that what you do so well is you help women navigate that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I want to make the distinction for women, because we're going to talk about playing all out for the Lord today. But I want to make the distinction between I need to make a little bit of money, I want to do something to like kind of play with my brain a little bit, and God is asking me to start a business. Those are very different things and that's one of the things that I consider my job is to just help them navigate that, because I don't think any one of them is better than the other. But sometimes women, especially these days, just want to make an extra $500 a month to close the gap of whatever that is, because life is getting expensive and there are a lot of ways to make $500 that do not necessarily mean, you know, getting a business license and starting a business. And then there's, I think, some hobbies that are kind of in the hobby space where we're making a little bit of money, but it's really intellectually stimulating and that's what women want. And those two things are great and they're fine and you can do that during nap time, right. But if God is calling you to do a business, he's calling you to create something that's profitable, right, if he wanted you to not make money, he would call you to a ministry or a hobby. But if he calls you to start a business, then it is your job, honorably, to go figure out how to do that.
Speaker 2:And one of the things that I talked about in that email was how I think Mary would do business. And it's hard to stretch our brain around that because he obviously did not ask her to do that. But if he did, okay, this is how it would go right. If the Lord said, mary, I want you to create a basket weaving business, she would have just received that mission, so graciously. Okay, yes, lord.
Speaker 2:And then, if she knew nothing about it, she would have gone and asked some people, how do you make baskets? And then she would have sourced the reeds. Maybe she would have had a couple women help her. They would have made designs right, baskets had designs. Back then they would have made some designs and then she would have sold them at the marketplace or wherever they sell baskets. And then she would have gotten customer feedback Do you like them, do you like the size, do you like the style?
Speaker 2:And then she would have, with complete detachment, changed it based on what the marketplace wanted right, and she just wouldn't have been obsessed with money and she wouldn't have been obsessed with herself. She wouldn't have woken up every day thinking I don't know what I'm doing, I'm not good enough to do this, it's all going to fall apart. We're doing that all the time, and I think that's one of the reasons why we're not more successful in business. So the way I think about it is, I think Mary would have done business as a straight line, right. She just would have said way I think about it is, I think Mary would have done business as a straight line, right. She just would have said received whatever showed up every day and left the results to the Lord. And I think that's how we, deep down in our hearts, really want to be doing business.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's so good. I know, the first time I heard you say that about doing business in a straight line, like Mary, I think, at first I resisted it because I am totally like a choleric, sanguine person and so I get really excited about stuff and I'm like, why can't we be way up here? And then I was like, oh yeah, because then we end up way down here, you know. And so it was just like this huge, like oscillating sine curve of you know, emotional highs and lows, and I'm like, but I want all these highs. And then finally, you know, with some experience, you start to realize, oh, if I could stay closer to that center line, if I could be just not so crazy high, not so crazy low, but more center, how could I be more peaceful in what I'm doing? And one of the things that I think it's really interesting you're talking about, because I think sometimes we as Catholics think about Mary and we think about her being almost like flaccid.
Speaker 2:I don't know.
Speaker 1:Maybe. I think she was definitely a peaceful. But I think sometimes when we think about Mary, the image that we have of someone playing all out might not be what we think of. When we think Mary, we might think someone who's maybe a little bit more intense. So I think it's really interesting to talk about what does it look like to be striving to be the absolute best you can be, but to be doing it in a peaceful way? Yeah.
Speaker 2:I totally think she played all out. I think she took care of her home. I think she took care of Joseph's business, right. I mean, women have always been behind men in their businesses and, you know, in those cultures they didn't always get a lot of credit for it, but they were, you know, often behind the scenes managing money and managing relationships. And, oh honey, you should meet this person and, and so I think that she probably you know, here's what playing all out means to me, like you put your head on the pillow at the end of the day and you're like I really did everything that I could. I just I did it. And and that doesn't mean and here's such an important distinction is it doesn't mean stress and it doesn't mean overextending yourself.
Speaker 2:The Jewish culture knew so well how to rest. They knew so well how to rest, and so they played hard and they still do. They still are. I think Jewish people are more successful in business, I think, than any other culture, and they know how to wake up and just really pound the pavement, lay the foundation, put in the reps, and then they know when to go.
Speaker 2:It's done, and I'm going to go be with my family, and they just do that so well, and so I don't want us to be confused that playing all out means burning the candle at both ends and drowning, right, but it is. It's just a quiet like could I just do a little bit more before I clock out, could I just? And in my home it's the same thing. It's like you know, when you notice that something could be swept and you have this moment where you're like I could sweep that or I could not sweep that or you're walking from one room to the next and you could step over something, or you could pick it up and it doesn't make you a horrible person not to do it.
Speaker 2:But when you do a few more of those little things, those are the days where you just you feel better about yourself. You get to the end of the day and you feel good. And so this really came out of my prayer time. A couple weeks ago, my business actually you guys was just feeling really easy, which was lovely. We all went to get to the place where we have systems in place and a team and launches just go and it was starting to feel really comfortable.
Speaker 2:And I feel like the Lord gave me this vision of standing in front of Him, giving an accounting to Him of my week where I really like, if I had to stand in front of the Lord, I was at the place where I realized I was just being comfortable. I was kind of hanging out and that's just not really what he asked me to do. He said you know, I want you to do this business. We'll talk about business models in a second but I want you to do this business and I agree, I want you to do it. Well, I want you to show up honorably, you know, and if you think about a silly job, like like even in Guadalupe, saint-andiego, and they just asked him.
Speaker 2:She said hey, take this to the guy, take the tilma to the guy. And it was such an important job and he ran right, because when somebody who's royal asks you to do something, you drop everything and you do it and you do it well. And I was doing okay in my business but I wasn't doing that. I wasn't like taking it so seriously, like it was this really precious mission from the Lord and wanting to do the best that I could, and so I can't really take credit for it. But I feel like he told me this and then I was like, yes, that makes a ton of sense that that's how we would do business.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. And I think so much of the time people kind of shy away from the what might come off sounding really harsh to say to someone hey, the reason why you're feeling that nagging voice saying that you could do better is because you could do better than this and you're capable of more than this. And I think that there's something in our kind of modern culture and society that kind of recoils against that thought, because we're like, oh no, but life is so hard already, everything's hard. We should be really soft, we should be really gentle. And it's like I kind of feel like, yes, we should be soft and gentle and loving toward the person, but it's not necessarily the most loving thing to let people perform at a level that's so much below what they could be at.
Speaker 1:And I feel like the Lord is like that with us, because he sees us where we are, loves us where we're at, accepts us where we're at and says you know what? You could be up here, you could be just a little bit better, and so he doesn't leave us where we are. And I love how you talk about that kind of feeling, that nagging voice that's telling you you could do better than this. It's not meant to make you feel down on yourself. It's not meant to make you feel like, oh, but I'm already so overwhelmed, I'm already so stretched thin, I'm so stretched out. It's really meant to inspire you, because the Lord's actually not asking us to do more than he's going to give us the grace to help us do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it comes down to discernment, because for those you know, I would say seven years, there were seven years where my heart longed for business. So I still felt this calling and I was very capable. I knew that I could have done business in that time, but the Lord was just staying there with his hand going, hey, not yet, not yet. So you got to discern it. Well, you cannot discern from fear or scarcity, or even boredom or dissatisfaction with mom life, like you have got to discern from him what he wants from you. And so that's step one. And I agree, I think, when he says now is the time to jump, just really trusting that that will happen.
Speaker 2:But I work with tons of women now and I just see over and over and over again the amount of energy that they expend worrying about money and being hard on themselves, being really negative and having that imposter syndrome. I shouldn't be doing this. This is terrible. Nobody likes my face, just all that stuff that our brain says. And I just want to offer that when we quiet that down, you actually might just end up working exactly the same amount of time that you're working now. We might not be asking you for more time, but if we just redirect that emotional energy into foundational skills for the business that you're building, it probably will fit very well into your life and not create more hardship.
Speaker 2:Because, it's true, I have six kids. That's hard, you guys. It's hard, it's loud, it's a lot, and we homeschool them. And so I still though I still can do more in my business and fit it into my life the way that I want, and I see that God has created a life for me that's really perfect, like a puzzle piece, like a Rubik's Cube, where it just clicks in and I can do all the things. I'm not doing everything, well, right, but I'm doing the things that I hear in my prayer life well, and I think that that is an important distinction.
Speaker 1:Oh, absolutely. Yeah, I know I was talking with someone once about what does it mean to pursue excellence as a Catholic? And this person I was talking to was like well, I'm really comfortable being mediocre in parts of my life, and I'm like you know what. So am I in parts of my life? Right? I mean, I'm not super like.
Speaker 1:I know you've talked about this before. I'm not crazy about folding laundry, you know. So I don't keep up with that. Very well, I don't keep up. I don't match socks. That's something I stopped doing many years ago, you know.
Speaker 1:So there are areas of my life that I'm completely comfortable with that being good enough, but then there are other areas of my life where I feel like good enough is just not even an option, like good enough is not what I've been called to do or to be.
Speaker 1:But and I think that too, what people start to recognize when they embrace this as a mission from God, like if the Lord has called you to this business, this is your mission, this is what the Lord has given you and created you for, really, like you are created to do this job for the Lord, then, in doing it, that's how we become that saint version of ourselves.
Speaker 1:And I know I've had a conversation with my husband before where we're talking about business, and I was telling him how hard it was and how I had to manage my time so much better and how I had to be so much more on top of my thoughts, and I'm having to deal with people rejecting me and all of these things that come with being in business. And as I was talking to him, though, I heard myself saying to him this is really hard. I have to learn all these skills in order to do it. All of these skills that I'm learning are forcing me to be a better person. Does God really want me to do this? And then I thought, wait, I just had to listen to what I was saying there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love that, and it's just not everyone. I mean, I love business, but I just don't think everyone is called to business, or called to business in every season. But even in my motherhood. You'd think that we're all you know. If you have kids, that you've been called to motherhood, that then you would be required to think about that with excellence, even within motherhood.
Speaker 2:God puts things on my heart and he'll just move my heart and be like you know what. I need you to focus a little bit more here and I need you to focus a little bit more there. He's not asking me to be excellent across the board, and so don't use this excellence thing against yourself Again. He will only call us to things that make sense for what we're doing right now, and he will give you everything that you need. But he did not call us to live comfortable lives. I really, I really agree with that, and that doesn't mean that we don't rest right, so we have to balance that. I think rest is important, but we know what it's like to just have one of those days where you just really play all out for the day at home and in your business and you put your head on the pillow and you just feel like well done, like that was a well done day.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, and it doesn't have to be a perfect day. Everything doesn't go perfectly. It's really just that attitude with which you're approaching the tasks you're doing. You're approaching it with an attitude of I'm going to do my best, I'm going to bring all of my natural talents and abilities to bear here, and I'm also going to do it in union with the Lord. I'm not going to do it in this spirit of fear or uncertainty or worry. It's just trust. I'm going to be in this place of trust where I don't necessarily see how this is all going to work out, but I also don't really need to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. And I think this is where it kind of comes back to whatever business model that God has called you to and he might call you to help a certain group of people. So he might call you to help women who are struggling postpartum. Okay, like, let's say, that's the target market and you may not know yet. Am I creating digital products for them? Am I running a group program for them? Am I doing one-on-one coaching? Should I write a book? Like there are a couple of things there, but then I would pray about that. I would pray about Lord how do you want me to help this group of people?
Speaker 2:But then once you hear and I promise you guys, you will hear what he wants you to do, your brain is going to act confused. Your brain's going to be like I just don't know how to do that. I don't know anything about that. I'm telling you, none of us I have yet to encounter a woman who has told me that she's creating a business that is confusing. All of them are very straightforward, right? None of us are like the Elon Musk of the internet right now.
Speaker 2:We are really creating digital products or services, or a brick and mortar store with products, or a restaurant or a thrifted clothing store, right, these businesses are very straightforward, and so if he's calling you to a particular type of business, just go learn about it. Just go learn. I promise you it is not mysterious, it is not a secret Like. How you build these businesses, how you get clients and sell them and then serve them, is known. It really is known.
Speaker 2:And so when your brain throws up I don't have experience, I don't know what I'm doing, just quiet those voices and go ask someone, because it really you're not the first person to do this and you don't need to reinvent the wheel. And that's why I think, when women are in the thick of it and they think, how could I make it harder than this? Because it's so hard to them in the moment, like well, you've made it much harder than it needs to be. Let's quiet some of these negative thoughts and ideas down and let's just go talk to some people and make some offers. Business really can be very simple, and then that's how it fits well into your life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love everything that you talk about too, about just bringing down that stress response, coming back to this calm place where you actually can quiet down and hear what the Lord is saying to you, because I know so many women are probably listening and they're like Lord doesn't talk to me like that or I don't hear that voice. So could you tell a little bit about what you tell women, about how they can discern that voice of the Lord?
Speaker 2:Yeah, first of all, just Google it right. Google how to hear the voice of the Lord. That voice of the Lord, yeah, first of all, just Google it right. Google how to hear the voice of the Lord. And I think on my website right now, the opt-in on the homepage is about discernment and it's about how to hear the voice of the Lord. But I'll tell you. The other thing you can Google is how God's voice sounds, and you'll see these two lists of words, and one list of words is how God's voice sounds.
Speaker 2:And then in the internet, they label the other words the devil's voice or the enemy's voice. I don't care about that. It might be the devil's voice, it might be your voice, it might be the culture's voice, it might be a movie that you saw. To me it doesn't really matter. It's just, is it God's voice? And God's voice is very soothing and God's voice is an invitation you said that earlier like he's just inviting us to more. He's not yelling at us, he's not like you're pathetic and you're blowing it. He's like I love you where you're at and I'm just inviting you to come with me to this level. So his voice will always feel good, even when he's rebuking us about our sinfulness. Right, there's a rightness to it. We're like, yeah, okay, lord, I totally see that I am doing that, but it feels good.
Speaker 2:And so the way that I really learned how to hear God's voice is I read the Bible a lot and I read the words in red. Get a Bible where Jesus's words are written in red and you'll just begin to know how his voice sounds. And the other thing that I did was I read the diary of St Faustina, because God talks to her a ton like so much, just paragraphs. He talks to her and you will also get a sense of how his voice sounds. And then I do it through writing actually. So I have a notebook and I'll say, lord, what are we doing today? And then I will just wait and I indent the paper and I write what I hear.
Speaker 2:And if I'm struggling to hear him, usually I know it's because maybe I need to go to confession, maybe I'm angry. There's some anger, some lack of forgiveness going on, maybe I'm scared of the answer. You know we've all done that where we ask God like, hey, should I do A or B, because that's what we want, and he's over here like, hey, it's C, but I can't tell you that because you only gave me these options, right, and particularly like around a move. Let's say somebody was like, hey, maybe you should move to Germany, and you're like I do not want to move to Germany, like you would be praying, discerning that, but with your fingers in your ears, and so when I find that people aren't hearing the Lord, that's kind of where I start, like are you scared of what he's going to say? Are you angry or have some sort of lack of forgiveness? Are you putting him in a box and only giving him a couple choices, or are you not giving him the time?
Speaker 2:I was just talking to one of my clients who was like I pray all the time, but so I said, okay, slow it down, tell me what it is, and but she was doing rope prayers like the Angelus and the Rosary, and I'm like, well, yes, you are praying, but you're not giving him any space to talk to you. We have to stop talking and we have to listen, and so it is a skill, but I promise you it is a skill anyone can learn. The Bible tells us that God will talk to us, and it's worth practicing, because when you have conviction, that is the best feeling that there is to drive what you're doing. When you really honestly feel like God is calling you to do something, it makes it very easy to say yes and to get up in the morning and do it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and to just find a way. You'll find a way, you'll figure it out, it'll work. I'm really curious to hear, since you've had this experience with your prayer and this kind of a revelation of you're too comfortable in your business, do it this way instead? What does that look like for you now? Like, what does that actually look like in your business?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, the first thing that I did was I created this new seven-week challenge that I'm doing and I'm calling it the Loaves and Fishes Challenge, where we just bring our meager offerings. You guys, like, we are so pathetic, if you could see, like, if you could understand how much like ants we are. We're just, we're so pathetic like ants. We have tiny, tiny brains, like the Lord and the angels and everyone. They're just watching us like, oh, those cute humans, oh, look at them, try to figure this out. And so, just, that's where we want to come with humility, where we can't do anything without God. All your ideas come from God. Like, I'm not so clever, right? God just gives me every idea that I've ever had. And so we just come with our meager like loaves and fishes, and then we trust him to multiply them and we show up, and we show up and we do the work. And so, for me, what I did was I looked at our businesses and for each one I went what kind of business is this? Right? And then, how do you build a business like this? I just wrote down the foundational things and then I talked to my team and I said, hey, we're going to tighten up these things or start doing some things that we hadn't done. For example, it had been a very long time before we had surveyed both our email list and the members in our membership, and that's such a very basic thing to do in business, and we just hadn't done it because it has no due date, right? There's no due date for market research, so it's so easy not to do it, and so we put that on the schedule and that's actually happening this week, and so it kind of took us. Well, we have a lot of email lists, so it just took us a while to put all those surveys together and tag them in the system correctly. But I think that's just such a great example of a very boring, like non-sexy thing that you would do, though, if you were honorably doing business, then in this challenge, I basically have created a seven-week challenge where I'm going to take a whole bunch of women through it to do the same thing.
Speaker 2:Where what kind of business model do you have? How do we grow that kind of business? And then how do we integrate that into your work week? Because it's so easy to get distracted or to play with spreadsheets or whatever it is that we do that sometimes we're just not even doing the foundational things, but it has also just made me a lot calmer. And listen, like Jessica said, we will never be a straight line. We are never going to do business like a straight line. We're always going to be up and down. But my hope is that we can shorten those cycles and minimize them, so make them less high and low and also shorter, so that we're spending more time in that deep, deep surrender. We're like, yeah, I'm just going to show up and do my job today and then I'm going to sign off and leave and not think about it and go be with my family.
Speaker 1:That's so good. When does this challenge start? The Loaves and Fishes Challenge the challenge starts next week.
Speaker 2:It starts on this Sunday, so the 20. Never. What is this Sunday, the 23rd, the 23rd. So I'm currently going to do this in my two programs, my Merry Mastermind and the Society. So Society is for women who haven't hit 100K yet, and then Mary Mastermind is for the ones who have hit 100K in their business, and so we're going to do that there, but I will be releasing it publicly, for free, and I really want to just encourage people to do that with each other, because not everybody's going to come do my programs. Not everyone's a mom. My programs are for moms, but I want to release it publicly so that anyone can do it with their friends. And that's one of my biggest pieces of advice for women doing business. It's unlikely that in your mom's group someone else is doing business, and so please, please, please, go find one business friend so you don't feel crazy and you don't feel alone and you can talk about business. And this is a great way to hold each other accountable for doing the work but also really walking with the Lord.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's so important and not a skill. I think that just comes naturally. I think we have to work at that skill, we have to grow. So where can people find out how to join this challenge?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so if you just go to sterlingjakewithcom, first of all you should do that opt-in there, which is how to let God be the CEO of your business and knowing how to pray about your business, and then you'd be on my email list and then when it comes out, it'll be a couple of weeks, so it won't be very long. I'm not gonna wait till we're done with the challenge, so it might even be a week and Fishes Challenge and it's going to be called the Loaves and Fishes Catholic Business Challenge. So if you totally forget all of this or how to spell my name, because it's weird you could probably just Google Loaves and Fishes Catholic Business Challenge and find it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I will put all the links to Sterling's website in the show notes for this episode. I will be doing the Loaves and Fishes Challenge as part of Sterling's Made for Business Society, so if you happen to be in there, I'll be doing the challenge with you. So this has been so much fun. Sterling, I really appreciate you sharing all of this with my audience. Like you said, not everyone is called to be a mom and in business, but for those who are, these are the foundational skills of learning how to listen to the Lord, let Him guide you, and to just show up and do the work.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I really appreciate what you do. I think we need to hold a high bar for each other, and it just feels better when we do that. It feels better when we work hard, like it's very satisfying. God made us for work. We will have jobs in heaven. We will work in heaven. That's how much God made us for work, and so it's true that, even though we think that feeling comfortable is better, when we hang out there for too long, we always feel sad. We always feel sad, you guys, and so it doesn't mean we have to be crazy pants, okay, but we probably could raise the bar a little bit and it will feel satisfying.
Speaker 1:That's 100% true. It absolutely does feel good to stretch and to grow and to work, so I love it. And even if you're listening to this podcast episode and you're not in business and you don't think the Lord's calling you to the business, just think about what does it mean to show up and do the work that you have been given to do with honor and to the best of your ability, because everybody's working, we're all working, so might as well be good at it. Right, that's the North Carolina in me coming out. People Might as well be good at it. So thank you so much, sterling. I just really appreciate your time today.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for having me.